We apologise to all who were inconvenienced by disruptions: SMRT CEO

The Chief Executive Officers of the Land Transport Authority (LTA) and train operator SMRT are scheduled to speak at a press conference at 11am on Wednesday morning (Jul 8), the day after a 3.5-hour disruption crippled the North-South and East-West Lines (NSEWL).

Refresh this page for updates from the press conference.

At the press conference, SMRT CEO Desmond Quek apologised to affected commuters. "We would like to apologise to commuters and all who were inconvenienced by the ‪‎MRT‬ disruptions," he said. "SMRT mobilised all engineering staff to conduct checks. We made some rectifications last night, but will continue to check on systems."

LTA CEO Chew Men Leong said engineers have been working overnight to find out the root cause of the power trip. "We had to systematically check trains, tracks and power systems. We will continue to do our checks and minimise such occurrences," he said.

Mr Lee Ling Wee, SMRT's director of trains, detailed a timeline of Tuesday night: "At 8.35pm our main consideration was that we didn't want passengers detrained on track. By 10.35pm, train service had resumed, but still had sporadic power trips."

"We are not 100 per cent sure on the root cause," he said. "We have an idea of where to check. We'll look through the data and find the root cause."

DISRUPTION LIKELY CAUSED BY POWER SURGE

The LTA had earlier said preliminary investigations indicated that a faulty train caused the power to trip.

“The power surge caused the protective relays across the entire North South East West Lines network to be activated, leading to a shut-down of power across the two lines,” it said in a statement.

On Tuesday evening, Singapore’s two main MRT lines came to a complete halt simultaneously during the evening peak period, resulting in swathes of stranded passengers across the island at all 54 stations on the NSEWL.

Services between the Pasir Ris and Joo Koon stations were restored after two hours with trains travelling at a slower speed as a precaution, while services on the North-South Line resumed 75 minutes later, at 10.35pm.